And now the silence

It's been a flurry of activity in the past month -- and it is exactly a month; it was Sunday night, four weeks ago right about now, that Larry brought up his plans to move out that prompted me to get serious about looking for a place to buy. Look at all that's happened since then.

• I started looking at listings.
• I contacted an agent.
• I met the agent.
• I got a mortgage broker.
• I got mortgage pre-approval.
• I got a real estate lawyer.
• I arranged to be shown, and actually viewed, four different places.
• I made a decision based on location, amenities, utilities, transit, and price.
• I made an offer on the place of my choice, and signed off on a counter-offer.
• I withdrew $25,000 from my RRSP and handed over a $5,000 deposit.
• I signed for a mortgage.

Now that is a powerful list when I consider that a month ago, I'd never done any of those things (aside from looking at listings now and then), and now I've actually done all that. And in under a month. Two months from today, if it all goes to plan, I'll be handed the key.

Two months. That's the problem. There's been all this activity. Scores of daily emails. Now, it's largely down to a couple of routine chores for the lawyer (title search, title insurance), and a long wait. If the closing were now, it would seem real. But there's no tangible result for me. I've done all this, and now... nothing. Silence. My pros are off doing other things, at least for now, and I sit here looking around, trying to think what I have to throw out, and how long before I really need to get serious about doing that. But otherwise, it's just business as usual. Despite all that.

Of course, once mid-May rolls around and there are all those last-minute things to do involving the closing, that'll change. And then there'll be June where I'm living here, owning there, and hauling the small stuff over on my own a little at a time each evening after work, and getting the feel of the place before my friends help me move the big stuff, and I say good-bye to this place after eleven years that have taken me from a young man to a middle aged one. But, just for now, it's been a whole lot of crescendo without a climax at the end. Just... silence, now. Two months is a long time to wait for the cymbals.